An Overview of Buddhist Philosophy and Ethics

BUDDHISM: PHILOSOPHY AND ETHICS

(TEXT PAGES: 131, 135-145 (ROBERT B. ZEUSCHNER, CLASSICAL ETHICS, EAST AND WEST: ETHICS FROM A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE, BRATTLEBORO: ECHO POINT BOOKS & MEDIA, 2014)

Buddhist Philosophy • ‘In early Buddhism, there is no deity to worship or pray to, and no spiritual benefits resulting from worship. There is no original sin, no eternal damnation for any sinful deeds; human beings are fundamentally good. There is no all-powerful God, no first cause, no prime mover, no creator. The Buddha is not a divinity, he does not reward the faithful or punish the unfaithful, does not reward virtue or punish vice, neither does he "save" anyone... You yourself must make the effort. The Buddhas only point the way.”’ (p. 131).* • Buddhism embraces “The Middle Way … between the extreme of asceticism (or selfmortification), and… of hedonism (or pleasurable self-indulgence).”

• Buddhism recognizes “pratityasamutpada” – i.e., “causality.”

• “Reality [is regarded as] ever-changing processes, interdependent and interacting.

Everything is impermanent and changing.” There is no “eternal soul” or “self” and “… there is no eternal unchanging essence underlying reality. All is just Process.”

• Thus, “[m]oral behavior will derive from a transformation of one's understanding and a concomitant transformation of one's character.”

• Per pratityasamutpada: “[f]rustration, dissatisfaction, suffering, and evil arise or are caused; much of your dissatisfaction arises from your own mind, and you have the power to liberate yourself.”

Buddhist Philosophy • “The Middle Way” derives from “The Four Noble Truths”: 1.

“The existence of duhkha”: ‘All existence is suffering and frustration (duhkha)…

Everything we do is impermanent… People try to get happiness or serenity from their lives by tightly holding onto things or persons, but life can only provide change. The result is grief, frustration, sickness, dissatisfaction, unhappiness.’

2. “The arising of duhkha”: ‘Among those causes are a self-centered possessive attitude toward things; self-centered attachment to and desire for sense pleasures; a desire for power, for wealth, for beliefs and opinions that everyone around you regards as correct; and even a desire to find some absolute "truth" to which one can hold… [also,] tendencies to behave in ways toward the world that ultimately produce pain and suffering, such as anger, hatred, and greediness.’ There is then the recognition of “The Three Poisons”: (1) ‘selfcentered craving or attachment’… (2) envy anger, or hatred… (3) confusion or ignorance of the nature of reality.’

3. “The cessation of duhkha”: ‘… the end of duhkha is Nirvana… an elimination of The Three Poisons… [t]he insight or understanding of the nature of reality is called Enlightenment….’

Buddhist Philosophy • 4. “The Noble Eightfold Path” to eliminate duhkha: 1. “Right Understanding”; 2. “Right Thought (these two constitute wisdom)”; 3. “Right Speech”; 4. “Right Action or Conduct”; 5. “Right Livelihood (these three constitute morality)’; 6. “Right Effort”; 7. “Right Mindfulness”; 8. “Right Concentration (these three constitute mental discipline).”

Buddhist Ethics Living a Moral Life Leads to the Elimination of Suffering • “Living a moral life is a necessary precondition for the ultimate liberation from suffering and the attainment of Nirvana. This is the justification for morality. Why be moral? If you do not live a moral life, you cannot lessen the duhkha in your life. What if you choose to be immoral? Then you will continue to suffer frustration, dissatisfaction, and anguish and will generate additional amounts of these same pains because of your behavior. In short: you harm yourself. The justification for following moral rules arises here” (p. 138).

Buddhist Ethics • For the Buddhist, again, "... the good life [is a] life free from duhkha....“Also, "... the moral person will try to perfect the Buddhist virtues, the most important of which include: generosity, loving kindness (compassion), morality, meditation, nonattachment, wisdom, zealousness in pursuit of awakening, patience, peacefulness, and honesty or truthfulness.“ • The Three Parts to Buddhist Morality: 1. “The householder … whose primary source of knowledge is the authority of tradition. This person has little or no insight into his or her own character or motivation... [they are] likely an egoistic hedonist. This position says that we seek our own pleasure and try to avoid pain; thus, we will tend to do whatever is to our own best advantage. The householder can lead a morally good life by being virtuous and following rules, whose ultimate effect is to reduce his or her self-centered cravings, anger and hatred, and confusion.”

• Karma is central to householder morality: “… certain actions are reflexive in the sense that the consequences of these actions return back to the agent like a boomerang. In other words, if you act with evil intent, you will suffer evil consequences in this life and in the next one. The evil you do will come back to hurt you. If you do good, the natural law of karma asserts that good consequences will follow such action, Act with good intent and you will be happy; both here and in the hereafter.”

2. “The mendicant monk or nun [who]… move[s] from the self-centered egocentric hedonistic ethic to one stressing compassion, one that takes into consideration the needs and desires of others. But the appeal of personal advantage is not entirely gone yet. The mendicant is still attracted by the morality of: Do what is right because it will lead to your freedom and a permanent end to your duhkha.”

3. “The arhat… one who has eliminated the habitual tendency to deal with the world from a standpoint of (1) self-centeredness, craving, greed, possessiveness; (2) envy, hatred, anger; and (3) confusion and ignorance of the true nature of the world… [they are]: "... free from all self-centeredness, free from anger and envy, and someone with this sort of personality will act spontaneously, compassionately, and with deep understanding.”

Buddhist Ethics • “For all three parts of Buddhist morality, an action is good if it produces good consequences, that is, a tendency to eliminate duhkha, and evil if it produces an increase in duhkha, that is, bad consequences. However, consequences are not the sole determiner of the rightness or wrongness of an action. Early Buddhism also stresses the agent's motives and intentions. If a person's motive was to cause harm or injure another, then the action is wrong.”

• The Moral Rules of Buddhism • “Buddhism is not deontological (i.e., in the Kantian sense). In Buddhism there is no fixed invariable moral law or principle. Moral principles derive from human experience of the interdependent causal flow that we call "reality." However, there are regularities, obvious patterns of behavior and personality that we see produce happiness or unhappiness. We can generalize on the basis of such patterns. That such patterns are uniform is what allows us to generalize to moral rules.”

• “Buddhism provides moral rules in several ways. Two of the most important are the Noble Eightfold Path and the Five Precepts (which can be interpreted as falling under several of the eight practices of the Noble Eightfold Path).”

• The third of the “Noble Eightfold path is Right Speech… [d]o not allow your language to falsify your experience. Your use of language must be changed so that it does not mislabel, mislead, or misrepresent. Obviously, this means that only the truth should be spoken. Negatively, it means that to live according to reality, abstain from telling lies, from slander, and from idle or useless gossip. Even if you know something negative about someone else, and it is true, don't repeat it.”

Buddhist Ethics “The fourth of the Noble Eightfold path, Right Conduct, is central for moral guidance. All behavior that flows out of craving and ignorance must be avoided, because actions that arise from craving or ignorance perpetuate suffering. All acts of aggression and selfindulgence must be avoided... The Five Precepts fall under this heading, and these five guide the conduct of the Buddhist layperson as follows: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

“Refrain from killing or hurting living creatures”; “Refrain from taking anything not given;” “Refrain from misuse of sensual pleasures”; “Refrain from speaking untruths”; “Refrain from self-intoxication with drinks or drugs.”

• “The fifth of the Noble Eightfold Path, Right Livelihood, provides rules for your choice of occupation. To see the world clearly and accurately, the way you earn your living must not be based on aggression, taking advantage of, or misleading others, or catering to the self-indulgent desires of others (which perpetuate suffering). Buddhists were not to work selling poisons, drugs, or weapons. Buddhists were not to earn their living in the military life.”

Buddhist Ethics Mental Effort and Morality • “The mental effort of meditation is helpful because it can help us to recognize and break the self-centered patterns of thoughts that keep us from recognizing the true nature of the world and the ways in which our own actions cause the pain and suffering we experience. As a result, the experienced meditator can begin to understand things as they truly are, and ultimately attain liberation.”

• “The sixth of the Noble Eightfold Path is Right Effort. It is a process in which the individual strives to maintain increasingly wholesome states of mind, such as being at peace. It also includes avoiding unwholesome states of mind, such as fear, anxiety, and pride.”

• “The seventh of the Noble Eightfold Path is Right Mindfulness… [y]ou must be attentive to what is going on. Pay attention to the activities of your own body, to sensations or feelings, to mental activities and ideas, thoughts, and conceptions. Don't be distracted; be aware. Nothing is to be done absentmindedly or out of mere habit.”

Buddhist Ethics Wisdom and Morality • “Under the heading of wisdom, we find Right Thought and Right Understanding.”

• “Right Thought means developing a consciousness that is free from hatred, ill will, or aversion. It includes selfless compassion, which is a nonegocentric love for others. Selfless detachment, love, and nonviolence are to characterize our way of dealing with others.”

• “Right Understanding encourages us to see things clearly, as they have come to be as a result of cause and effect. We do not see permanent and eternal entities such as unchanging realities, essences, or souls. We see change, processes, each arising from causes and dependent on conditions. Right understanding means seeing things as they really are, not as you wish they were, hope they will be, or demand that they must be. See things without ignorance, confusion, anger, or self-centered egocentric perceptions. Right understanding is ultimately the highest wisdom, which permits us to comprehend reality, "things as they truly are."

Buddhist Ethics Overview

• “The fundamental question in Buddhist morality is "What sort of a person do I want to be?" and the answer is -- a person who is free from duhkha and free from the continuous cycle of birth and death. The highest good, and the ultimate goal of Buddhism, is a state of freedom and selfrealization. The means for attaining this are found in the Four Noble Truths, which have wisdom, meditation, and morality as components.

Meditation is used to develop moral attitudes of nonattachment and compassion, and to clear the mind from craving. Meditation is also needed to calm the mind, allowing one to gain insight into pratityasamutpada, the causally interdependent coarising nature of reality. Thus, the elimination of duhkha and the attainment of Nirvana have two components: (1) the moral component: refraining from actions that cause harm; and (2) the wisdom component: developing liberative insight into the nature of reality. Both of these components are supported by the practice of meditation.”